October 13
Hypocrisy is the great impediment in evangelism. Our Lord prayed that His people might be marked by reality. “Sanctify them through Thy truth: Thy word is truth” (Jn 17:17). A.W. Tozer writes: Truth, to be understood, must be lived. Bible doctrine is wholly ineffective until it has been digested and assimilated by the total life. The essence of my belief is that there is a difference, a vast difference, between fact and truth. Truth in the Scriptures is more than a fact. A fact may be detached, impersonal, cold and totally disassociated from life. Truth, on the other hand, is warm, living,...
Read MoreOctober 12
Peter Waldo (c. 1140 – c. 1218) lived in the darkest days of the Dark Ages. A wealthy merchant of Lyon, Waldo was enjoying dinner with friends one evening when one of them suddenly fell lifeless to the floor. This was such a shock that he abandoned his occupation, giving his attention completely to the salvation of his soul. The priests were no help. He knew no one who understood the gospel so he turned to the Scriptures and there discovered God’s way of salvation. Immediately he began to distribute his wealth to the poor, paid for the translation of the Bible into the Romance languages, and...
Read MoreOctober 11
Confucianism: The insistence that human beings are perfectible through personal and communal endeavor. The main religious belief of China looks back to Confucius (the anglicized form of Kunk Fu-tzu, or Kung the Master) about 1000 years after Moses. Confucianism is an optimistic humanism that assumes man is basically good, being opposed to the biblical doctrine that man is sinful by birth, inclination, and practice. Due to this fatal flaw, there is thought to be no need of a Savior. Confucian teachings include filial piety (devotion of younger to elder family members), benevolence, loyalty to...
Read MoreOctober 10
Hy Pickering, born in Newcastle-on-Tyne, was raised in a religious home, but after being christened and confirmed, found he had not been converted. Not far from where he lived, some meeting began in a barn. He said the preacher “made no pretense at eloquence, wore no surplice, used no notes, and feared no man. The first night he preached on the text, ‘The wicked shall be turned into hell’ (Ps 9:17). It was resented. Yet my conscience answered, ‘It is true of you.’ Realizing I had religion without the Redeemer, I sat a hopeless, helpless sinner, anxious to be saved. The preacher pled, ‘Say in...
Read MoreOctober 9
It was Blaise Pascal who said: “Not only do we not know God except through Jesus Christ; we do not even know ourselves except through Jesus Christ.” At the Cross we find both revealed. God’s love, mercy and justice respond to the sinner and his sin. Look at what Christ did to reconcile us to God: “Christ died for our sins according to the scriptures” (1 Cor 15:3). “And you know that He was manifested to take away our sins” (1 Jn 3:5). “When He had by Himself purged our sins, [He] sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high” (Heb 1:3). “God…sent his Son to be the propitiation for our...
Read MoreOctober 8
George Whitfield (1714-1770), who was used by God to spread the Great Awakening, became perhaps the best-known preacher in Britain and America in the 18th century. In May of 1750, after hearing Whitfield preach, John Thorpe and three friends attended a local “Hell-Fire Club,” an atheists’ gathering. To amuse his friends, with amazing accuracy Thorpe recited the sermon he had just heard Whitfield preach. With remarkable tone and clever mimicry, John Thorpe presented the preacher’s message until, suddenly, he slumped into a chair and cradled his weeping face in his hands. With a self-inflicted...
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